Robin Hamilton wrote:
>From: "Ken Wolman" <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
>>Confusion fall.... I woulda thunk the Irish and Scots were united by at
>>least one thing: loathing England. Maybe not a time or place for a
>>history lesson, but still....
>>
>>ken
>>
>>
>
>Oh god, Ken, this was Glasgow ...
>
>
So I surmise. Not a clue about the specifics of Glasgow as opposed to
Edinburgh or anyplace else in Scotland. What I read is a story of class
as much as who was the Prot and who was the Catholic, Irish, Scots,
whatever. You got on at least as well as me when I worked in an upstate
New York factory for three months. Probably better. Me: Bronx Jewboy
who at age 31 had less than a clue. Ph.D. candidate on the five PM to
two AM shift dipping copper plates in a vat filled with trichlorethylene
which has probably started cancer in me already. For working
companions, as I've said before, guys right out of The Deer Hunter--most
had gone not much further than high school, the old man got them a job
in the IBM factory when lifetime employment was honored, I won most of
them over with whatever I used to pass for humor (sarcasm), I had to
back down from a dangerous character one night who thought I'd accused
him of stealing (I had and he probably did), but on the last night I was
there I was taken out for a 2-4 AM drunken extravaganza in a saloon in
the hills of Endicott. Closing time in New York State bars then as now
is 4 in the morning. Pitchers of beer and shots of cheap whiskey. Most
of my coworkers had been high school football players (the American
game, not soccer or rugby). The ethic carried over into the real
world. There was a potentially violent streak to every exchange, even
in joking around. Life as scrimmage. I was an outsider and was never
made to feel like anything else except for that last night when they
knew they were ridding themselves of the Kike for good and all. No
nobody ever called me that: there are some lines even a tough guy will
not cross because the workrooms were full of screwdrivers and other
dangerous tools--but it was one of those words that hung just under the
occasional Jew-joke, the comments about New York(city)ers, the
fascination with and resentment at people with supposed education.
I learned that summer I didn't know squat about the world into which I
stepped in the pursuit of a minimum wage job, except I have a pretty
good idea who voted Republican in the last 10 elections.
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
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